Don't get any on you.

September 15, 2016

I will have a baby within the next two weeks. Before October makes its way into the world, so will my daughter.

This was the plan. Get pregnant, grow a human, push her out into existence. This was the plan all along.

But today there became an end date, a period at the end of the sentence. Soon I will be a mother.

I am now full term. I'll be 39 weeks pregnant in two days. After that comes 40. And three days after that comes my scheduled induction.

I went to the doctor for my weekly checkup this morning with a question in my back pocket: what happens if she doesn't come before my due date? I was excited to learn the answer. I've been tired of being pregnant for a very long time now -- almost since the beginning, really -- and I am eager for this pregnancy to end. My feet hurt. I'm swollen. Carrying all of this weight around is tiresome, and watching the scale continue to creep up is horrifying. I'm exhausted. I can't sleep. I can't tie my shoes. If I drop something on the floor, forget about it, that's where it stays. The pain in my back is downright agonizing. Flipping over in bed (because my hips are on fire) is a seven-point turn that takes a full two minutes. I can't get out of the bathtub by myself. I could go on. Suffice it to say, I am ready. And so as I prepared to ask what happens if she's late, I did so with eagerness and excitement.

But now I feel overwhelmed.

I told my shrink this morning that I haven't been scared or nervous about giving birth or taking care of a baby. There is so much that is unknown about the entire process to me that I felt I couldn't really get anxious. Anxiety is about lack of control, and so much of what will happen is out of my control that my normal instinct to fret and worry hadn't taken over. Even when I showed Dominique a video of a vaginal birth. Even when we watched a woman on YouTube get an epidural with a giant, frightful needle. Even then I felt calm.

But not now.

Now there is a known stopping point to this life that I know and a trigger preparing to be pulled in less than two weeks' time. I am going to be admitted to a hospital. They are going to put drugs into me that will cause my uterus to contract painfully. I will need to hold my breath while I receive an injection into my spine. I will have to push. It will be hard, and I will be hungry. I will grow tired. I may rip and tear. I may need to be cut open. I may need to be wheeled into surgery and have a human pulled out of me from the inside. And all of that possibility is now squarely on the calendar.

September 27th. If I don't go into labor on my own, I'll go into labor on September 27th.

And I'm scared. I didn't think I would be, but I am.

Billions of women do this. Hundreds of billions of women have done this. I can and will do this. But it seemed less terrifying when there wasn't a red circle around a Tuesday at the end of the month.

It's all too much to think about. I'm going to have a baby, and then we're going to take her home. To our house. Where the shower curtain is currently mildewing and the refrigerator needs a good cleaning. Where the floors are hard and the tables have pointy edges and two people who have never changed a diaper in their lives live.

I know we are capable, and I know that we will do our best. We will be good parents, all signs point to this. We love each other fiercely, and we already love this baby more than just about anything. But ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod.

Obviously, I'd like to go into labor naturally as opposed to being induced. Counting down the days until you know you're going to do something monumental and frightening is infinitely more daunting than letting it spring up and surprise you.

August 20, 2016

I am 35 weeks pregnant today. We are nearing the end. I feel like I've been pregnant for five years, and I can't believe I still have five more weeks to go.

I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos about what to pack for the hospital, what to expect during those first few days after she's here...mostly just keeping occupied with preparing for her arrival since I don't have the energy to do much else. One of the types of videos I see often is "pregnancy must-haves," wherein an attractive young woman lists products she used to stay sane for nine months in front of her expensive camera and some really good lighting.

There have been a whole host of things I couldn't live without during my own long road to motherhood, so I thought I'd share them here, since 3837 versions of this blog post on the internet is probably not enough.

We're going to break these lists down by trimesters, so first let's go back in time to January, when the hellish first stages of gestation began.

FIRST (WORST) TRIMESTER

SALTINES: I was extremely lucky to not have the soul-sucking nausea that many women experience in their first trimester, the horribly-named "morning sickness," that strikes at all hours of the day and night. But I was sick to my stomach sometimes. I'd be walking along the subway platform when a smell would smack me senseless, and I'd have to put hands to knees not to barf all over the place.

One thing that kept me from feeling ill was to keep a full tummy at all times. An empty stomach meant I was much more likely to feel queasy, so something I couldn't live without were bland and beautiful Saltine crackers.

These square, salt-covered saviors rescued me so many times. I kept a sleeve by my bed, and would even snack on them in the middle of the night to prevent myself from getting too hungry. Feeling too hungry meant feeling like I was going to ralph. Kick me out of bed for eating crackers? If anyone tried it, I'd have put an intense hurting on them.

KLEENEX: Another item I couldn't live without in those first three months were tissues. Because I did allllll of the crying. Sobbing, really. I was an emotional wreck all the way until the end of March, boo-hooing at episodes of "Chef's Table" for no real reason. (I distinctly remember having a breakdown over a wheel of parmesan cheese.)

I kept travel-sized Kleenex tissues with me wherever I went, unsure of when my next crying fit would commence.

PILLOWS: I already had plenty of pillows, and it's a good thing. I needed them to beat mercilessly and to muffle my screams before falling into them at 5 p.m. in a heap of exhaustion. I spent my first trimester mad as hell. I was not myself, and this stranger was full of fury and rage. I hated everyone and everything. I was so angry almost all of the time.

I remember Googling "pregnant and I hate my husband" to find that I wasn't alone! Pregnant women the world over were angry at their spouses for absolutely no reason, and that anger was so thick you could chew it. Taking the subway was a daily temptation to murder. I wanted to beat the hell out of anyone who came into my path.

So, I beat pillows instead. I nearly turned a pillow into shreds once, and then I held it to my face and screamed the kind of scream that will have the cops sent to your house.

When I wasn't boxing pillows I was sleeping on them. I have never experienced exhaustion like I did in those first three months, so tired from just going to work, that I'd come straight home and immediately faceplant into bed at 6 p.m. and not move until the following morning.

ALL OF THE ICE CREAM: What's a pregnant woman besieged by uncontrollable hormonal outbursts supposed to do without wine? Eat her weight in ice cream. I put on a big chunk of my pregnancy weight (15 pounds!) right out of the gate due to emotional eating. And it was totally worth it. I couldn't cure my rage or sobbing fits with a stiff martini, so I drowned them in Ben & Jerry's. (This baby might actually be part Americone Dream.)

I'm not kidding when I say that creating a placenta out of my innards turned me into a nasty beast, and the only thing that could quell the monster was sugar and cream in frozen form. I probably had twelve to fifteen pints of ice cream in three months.

GOOGLE: This must-have was a godsend. But it was also a nightmare. I had to wield it wisely. I wanted to know everything about what was going on inside the body that was betraying me, and Google helped me to become informed about why I had to leave my home when Dominique made beef stew in the slow cooker because I was going to spray the house with vomit. Human chorionic gonadotropin was to blame, but it was also keeping my blueberry-sized baby firmly implanted in the uterine lining, which was essential for her survival.

Thanks to Google I learned that the surge in estrogen and progesterone was why I alternated between wanting to kick puppies in the teeth to jagged fits of crying because my partner said I was cute. Google helped me feel sane in a tidal wave of hormones, giving me the scientific reasons for my full-scale meltdowns.

But the power of Google must only be used for good. For serious issues like finding blood when there should be none, skip Google and head straight to the phone to call your midwife or obstetrician.

---

Coming soon is part two, the "fun" trimester, where we'll talk about which products will best assist you through the middle of your gestational journey.

June 04, 2016

When you are pregnant for the first time in your whole life, there is so much you don't know. Read all you want, but it's hard to know what is considered normal.

I'd read that Braxton-Hicks contractions could start around this time, around the 24 week mark. I'm 23 weeks and 5 days. But I've never had contractions before. What do they feel like? How will I know that it's them?

Yesterday at work, around 4 p.m., I went to the bathroom for the gajillionth time. Peeing is all I do these days. (Baby Girl straight kicked me in the bladder for the first time yesterday.) After finishing I felt wetness, so followed up with more tissue. Before flushing I saw that that tissue was tinged with red blood.

I stood frozen in the stall. "Brown blood is good. Red blood is bad." I'd heard it and read it a thousand times after my last ordeal. So I wiped again. More red blood. A tiny, tiny amount, but still it was bright red. Every time I looked at more clean tissue it come away with little streaks of red. I started to panic.

I called Dominique. My calls went straight to voicemail. So, I texted him instead, told him what was up and asked that he call. Then I called my doctor's office. After pressing 5 to speak to a human, the call was dropped. Frustrated and scared, I headed back into the bathroom. More red blood.

I knew my OB wasn't in the office that day. And I knew that I could call the emergency line and wait for a doctor on call to call me back, but I didn't want to wait. Not when I started feeling cramping on my left side. I was bleeding and cramping, and I knew that even at 23 weeks my baby had an ever-so-slight chance of viability outside the womb if something went wrong. So, I decided to go to the E.R.

I told Dominique I'd go to Roosevelt Hospital on the West Side, where we have our ultrasounds done and where we are scheduled to deliver our baby in September. I left work informing only the woman nearest me of what was happening and ran down to the street to hail a cab. Mercifully, I was able to snag one in under two minutes.

"59th and 10th. Roosevelt Hospital emergency room. And please hurry," I said as I slid into the backseat.

Midtown traffic is no joke. It took a full fifteen minutes to go fifteen blocks, with construction and bikers and pedestrians blocking the way. Seeing people laugh and dawdle in the crosswalks while my cramps grew more frequent was maddening. I tried holding it together at every red light when really what I wanted to do was scream.

Once at the emergency room I walked in to see people everywhere. Two nurses were posted up at a desk and so I walked right up and asked, "Can you help me? I'm 23 weeks and I have bleeding and cramping." And then I finally started to cry.

"How many weeks did you say?," they asked.

"Twenty-three."

"Then you can go straight up to Labor & Delivery. 14th Floor."

A man escorted me to Labor & Delivery while I cried and rubbed my belly.

"Try to relax," he said. "It's going to be okay. It doesn't help anything if you are in distress. Your baby needs you to be calm."

He was right, and it helped me to breathe and to focus.

A nurse took her sweet time asking me questions about Ebola (?!???) and then asked me to fill out a form with my insurance information. No service til they know how you'll be paying. As she made a copy of my insurance form I felt another strong cramp.

After all the formalities, I was taken to a bed and asked to pee into a cup. (This time no blood, which was a huge relief.) Then to take off everything but my bra and to place a tight wrap around my belly. Then I put on the fetching open-backed gown.

Luckily, Dominique had arrived by then and helped me get undressed and hugged me hard, reminding me that everything would be okay.

They took some blood and placed a monitor under the gauzy wrap around my belly to see if I was having contractions.

Then I just had to wait. As I was lying there waiting, I could feel my daughter moving and kicking, so I knew she was alive. But was she in distress?

10 or so minutes later the nurse came back and informed me that I was indeed contracting. The room started to spin. In those few moments everything became grim and I wondered if I'd be giving birth that night. I feared we wouldn't have a little girl to show for it.

They hooked me up via IV to a bag of fluid and electrolytes as they told me that dehydration sometimes causes that to happen. As she was inserting the needle I heard her say, "Oh crap. Gosh. Crap," and I knew that the insertion had gone wrong. Turned out that blood was dripping from my arm and onto the floor in a puddle as Dominique watched. She had to go get an absorbent square thing to soak it all up.

"I drank so much water today," I told her, but she insisted that sometimes when it's hot, water is not enough.

I lied there terrified. I could feel tiny cramps, nothing huge, but I wondered, "Is this how it starts? Am I in labor?"

I'd have to wait to find out. A doctor was going to perform a pelvic exam to check my cervix and an ultrasound to check on the status of the baby. It took what seemed like years for her to get to me. And once she did, I was told that the machine was being sterilized and that I'd have to wait another 15 minutes. It took more like 30. Time inched by.

Finally the doctor and her observing student came for the exams. They could find no blood, which was a huge plus. Also, my cervix was completely closed which means that I was not going into labor. This was the news that finally allowed me to relax a little. But it wasn't until I saw my baby jumping around on the ultrasound monitor that I was truly put at ease.

"She's active!," the doctor told me. "She's moving so much we can barely track her heartbeat."

But finally they did. A steady 156.

Relief came over me like a wave. The cramping was lessening. I wasn't dilated at all. And my baby was doing a feisty jig, just as she always does.

They wanted me to wait two hours to do a second cervical exam, just to be on the safe side. And to give me a second bag of IV fluids. I was happy to do that because I'd finally gotten word that everything was likely okay.

As I waited I listened as a woman beside me came in in obvious pain. She was moaning like a porn star in two minute intervals. She was a week and half overdue and labored at home for a while before coming in. I heard the staff's surprise when she measured 8 centimeters dilated and they informed her, "we doubt you'll be pregnant in an hour." I thought ahead to my own big day some three and half months away. Would my moans sound so sexy? Doubtful. I'll probably sound like a cornered animal.

After settling down, doubt started to creep in. Had I overreacted by coming to the E.R.? Should I have gotten in touch with the doctor on call at the OB practice and waited for word on what to do? Lots of second-guessing began about whether I was one of those overly neurotic first-time mothers who is eliciting eye rolls from everyone on staff.

But red blood and contractions at 23 weeks is a big deal! That's not normal! I have to remind myself that being safe and certain is way better than taking a risk and sitting at home with worry and fear all for the sake of not seeming too neurotic. This is not just my life we are talking about here. This little girl is counting on me to make the right decisions.

Two long hours later the doctor came back to perform a second (painful) cervical exam and told me that all looked good. My cervix was "nice and long," which is apparently a good thing.

I was discharged and sent home with paperwork that told me how to behave in the coming days. Lots of water. Lots of iron. Rest often. And that if I see blood, head straight to the hospital. And with that line I was validated in my choice to head straight to the E.R.

Being pregnant for the first time in your life is a trip. Especially with the little complications I've had along the way: subchorionic hematoma, marginal cord placement, high risk for Trisomy 21...heck, just being 38 puts me in the "high-risk" category right out of the gate. I can read books or Google until the cows come home, but often that just ratchets my anxiety up to previously unknown levels. It's so hard to know what is normal, what is right, when something is wrong, and how to handle any of it.

I just want her to get here. I do not enjoy being pregnant. Some women say they love being pregnant, and I fully believe them to be either witches or lying though their teeth.

She's going to be worth it, undoubtedly. But the waiting for her arrival is the hardest part. Until the new hardest part, which will be loving her with a fierceness unlike I've ever known and then watching the world somehow disappoint her. I suppose for that, I can wait. Because at least for now she's with me, where no one can hurt her.

April 03, 2016

Here’s something you might not know, because I sure as sin didn’t: 25% percent of women will experience bleeding while pregnant. 1 in 4! I’d heard about the morning sickness, the exhaustion, the breaking down in tears at the drop of a Downy commercial, but bleeding? Seemed to have missed that one.

Early on in my pregnancy, about week 5 or 6, I had some spotting, and promptly freaked right on out. I immediately began googling. My research turned up two possibilities: it could be nothing or I could be miscarrying. Not particularly helpful. In fact, that just freaked me out even more.

One of the things I learned is that if you’re beginning to miscarry, you may notice that your pregnancy symptoms have disappeared. Less nausea, breasts stop being tender, and you may even feel an “emptiness.”

I grabbed at my chest in panic. My chest wasn’t as sore. I wasn’t nauseated. I could feel it: I was having a miscarriage.

So, I called my OB. I informed him of the spotting, at which time he said that that is relatively common. It happens to about 1 in 4 women. However, he said, it could also be a sign of a miscarriage.

I told him on the phone that I didn’t “feel” pregnant anymore. I told him that my breasts weren’t sore that day, I told him I wasn’t feeling run down or ill and that I felt empty. Good doctor that he is, he told me that pregnancy symptoms come and go, in and out like tides, and that my feeling “less pregnant” should not be an indicator that anything is wrong. He asked me to come in the following day for a visit.

That OB appointment was my first look at the baby growing inside of me. He performed a vaginal ultrasound as I was far too early for a standard sonogram to pick up anything, and there we saw a tiny white blob. Not a baby, per se, but a gestational sac. An adorable, wonderful little gob. I asked him point-blank if he thought I was having a miscarriage, and he said no. He also let me in on a fact I hadn’t even considered: if I was miscarrying, there was nothing he nor I could do to stop that tragic unfolding of events.

“There is nothing I can do to stop a miscarriage this early in a pregnancy," he said. "Try to remember that if you miscarry, it means that this wasn’t a viable pregnancy, and that, sad as it is, this pregnancy wasn’t meant to be. There is a long road ahead of you that extends well beyond even the birth date, and so many things that will happen are completely out of your control. Try not to worry. And for God’s sake, stop googling.”

I left his office that day buoyed by the news: the doctor thought everything was fine. I had worked myself into a breakdown by trying to obtain information from pregnancy forums where only the tales of woe stuck in my brain. Everything was going to be fine, and even if not, that was not in my control. I relaxed and within two to three days the spotting had stopped.

Cut to five weeks later. I got up on a Thursday morning at 5:45 a.m., quickly dressed, threw some cat food in a bowl and took the train downtown for my 7:30 a.m. therapy session.

It went as it usually did. I cried, we talked, she recommended some strategies to cope with my anxiety and then I left.

I took myself to breakfast as I often do after those early-morning appointments, this time at a small, rustic subterranean restaurant in NoHo where I had scrambled eggs and salad and toast and juice and tea and sat in pleasant solitude.

I knew that Blick, an art supply store was across the street, so I waited until 9 a.m. for it to open so I could purchase some envelopes for our wedding invitations.

As I was perusing the options — stark white or pearlescent cream? — I felt a gush between my legs.

I grabbed several packets of envelopes and headed to the register, and as I walked fluid seemed to be coming out of me in a flood. I quickly paid for my purchases, tucking my wool skirt between my legs. As I left the store the gushing sensation intensified. I ducked into an alleyway and actually said out loud, “what the hell is going on?”

I had some wadded up tissues in my backpack that I’d cried into during therapy so I took them out and pressed them up under my skirt. I looked to find them stained a light pink. And soaking.

Panic set in. Gushing light pink fluid at 10 weeks pregnant is not good. And spotting is one thing, but this was something altogether more terrifying.

I rushed back to the restaurant, pushed past the hostess and into the bathroom where I shoved a stack of paper towels into my tights. And I immediately began calling and texting Dominique. There was no answer.

“WHERE ARE YOU?,” I typed furiously after no response to multiple phone calls and texts. There may have been a few expletives added to the message. “ANSWER ME,” I tapped and hit send.

Call after call after call after call, all of them straight to voicemail. I knew he had to be at work at 9 a.m., so I couldn’t comprehend why he wasn’t answering. My panic mounted.

I was supposed to be on my way into the office but decided to take the subway home instead. I jumped on the N train, rigid with fear, praying the paper towels would hold up until I got home. And I kept calling Dominique…..nothing.

Of all the times to be unavailable! I was leaking in the middle of Manhattan, our child’s life in danger, and he was nowhere to be found. Rage mingled with fear.

I sent a desperate text to my sister and typed into Google: “pink fluid, 10 weeks” and waited for cell reception as the train slid in and out of stations. I read small snatches about something called a SCH before my cell phone became unusable again, trying hard to keep calm. My sister tried calling me, but we were cut off mid-sentence as I traveled underground.

“I’m reading good things!,” she texted me. “Take a deep breath!”

The entire trip was a blur. I couldn’t wait to get home. To find Dominique, to call my doctor, to be out of public so I could lose it.

I arrived home, barged in the front door and could see the bedroom door closed, just as I’d left it several hours before. Dominique was still asleep.

I slammed open the bedroom door and began yelling, “GET UP. GET UP!! I’M HAVING A MISCARRIAGE!” There my have been a few expletives added in there.

I threw down my backpack, flung off my coat and watched a confused and bleary-eyed Dominique try to process what the hell was happening.

“I’VE BEEN CALLING AND CALLING AND CALLING YOU! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU!”

“I took the morning off! My ringer was off!,” he explained, groggy and terrified, and he followed me into the bathroom.

I pulled down my tights to see the paper towels now soaked with bright red blood. Fresh blood. The kind you never want to see when pregnant.

My heart sank and my panic rose even higher and I screamed out again, “I’M HAVING A MISCARRIAGE!” His eyes widened.

With a gravity I’ve rarely heard from him he said, “I’ll call the doctor.”

My world was spinning. I waited while he called and listened to the recorded message on the phone. “They aren’t answering,” he said.

So, I decided then and there to go to the emergency room.

I put the paper towels as evidence into a plastic bag, tied it up and we headed out the door to find a cab. There is always a row of taxis waiting near the subway station, and we tried getting into the first one we found. The cab driver pointed to the taxi at the front of the line, indicating that we should take that one instead.

“I DON’T CARE WHOSE TURN IT IS,” I growled at the driver, and Dominique led me by the hand to the taxi at the front of the line.

“Take us to the E.R.,” I demanded. “23rd and 30th.”

I cried all the way there. So many thoughts entered my mind: “We’ll try again.” “It will be okay.” “I hope this isn’t too painful.” “Why is this happening; what have I done?” “At least I can have a glass of wine now.”

We entered the emergency room and told the nurse at receiving what was going on. Tears splashed onto the counter. I gave my insurance information and my address and phone number, and much to my surprise I was called back to the nurse’s station almost immediately. I bawled as she asked me questions I don’t remember.

I could see Dominique’s face from the room and his eyes were so sad.

A second nurse came in to take my blood pressure. She was small and thin with a ball of frizzy blonde hair piled atop her head. With genuine concern she told me, “Listen, honey, don’t think the worst. We see this kind of thing every day. It doesn’t always mean what you think it means. Just relax and wait. Everything will be okay.”

In almost no time they had a partitioned off area ready for us with a bed, and Dominique was able to join me. We held hands and waited for a doctor to come in and perform a pelvic exam.

By this time the bleeding had stopped. The doctor repeated what the nurse had said earlier, that this kind of bleeding isn’t normal, but more common than you’d think, and that it doesn’t necessarily mean doom. I began to relax. I began to have hope. My panic subsided.

I sent an email to my boss explaining I wouldn’t be at work that day. “I can’t come in today. I think I might be having a miscarriage. I was going to tell you I was pregnant in the second trimester, but now you know.”

He was incredibly understanding and concerned. It wasn’t how I planned to announce to my work that I was pregnant, but the best laid plans…

Soon I was transferred via wheelchair to the floor above where I was asked to wait for an ultrasound. “Do you have to pee?,” they asked me. I shook my head no. “Then drink five glasses of water. The dispenser is there in the waiting room.”

I took a seat in the waiting room after filling my little plastic cup. I had a few sips when it started again. A torrent of blood.

I needed a bathroom. Immediately.

It was occupied. I sat there in terror and tried to wait, but the blood was gushing then, and I was wearing only a hospital gown and I was actually afraid I was going to bleed all over the floor.

I’d rarely felt so helpless as I did right then. I stood up, came around to the desk, crying and pleading with the nurses, “I need a bathroom,” I sobbed.

“Is she bleeding that much?,” I overheard a nurse say. They handed me a second hospital gown which I then stuck between my legs to soak up the flow. Dominique was standing guard at the bathroom so that he could claim it for me when it became available and the fear in his eyes broke my heart.

The bathroom finally became free. I went inside and there was blood everywhere. I cleaned it up as best I could, and when I opened the door to come back out Dominique stepped inside and grabbed me. He held me tight as I sobbed into his chest.

“We’re going to get you seen right now,” a nurse told me. I sat in the wheelchair in shock. And I cried.

A round lady with the thickest Queens accent I’ve ever heard crouched near my chair and patted my knee, and said, “Don’t you worry. You’re going to have tons of babies. So many babies.” And my heart broke. I wanted the one I thought was getting away.

Soon I was taken into a room where a large machine sat next to a bed. Dominique had to stay outside and wait. The tech who was going to perform the sonogram grabbed my hand, and said, “I know this is hard. Try to relax, okay? I know this is tough. Take a deep breath.”

I exposed my belly and he covered it in a blue goo.

“We’re going to try to do this through the stomach, because we don’t want to do a transvaginal unless we have to, okay?” I nodded, numb.

He began working the wand over my belly. “Tell me if it hurts, okay?” There was pressure, but no pain. He was still holding my hand with his free one.

I stared at the ceiling. I tried to take those deep breaths he asked me to take.

Then all of the sudden, he said, “Look!” I turned my head to the right to look at the screen, something I was unable to do before that.

“Look! It’s your baby!” His voice was almost jubilant.

I squinted at the screen, and there it was. Our baby. And our baby was dancing.

I burst into tears and couldn’t tear my eyes from the screen. He or she was moving around so much! So active! I’d never seen anything but a blob at my OB’s office, but here I could see a head and two arms and two legs and they were moving all about.

“Looks like he’s sucking his thumb,” the tech said with the widest grin.

“So, everything is okay?,” I asked him.

“Heartbeat of 172,” he said back. “Looks to me like everything is okay.”

I was flooded with relief. I couldn’t take my eyes off this lively, tiny being with the giant head.

“Then why am I bleeding?,” I asked him.

“Sometimes it just happens. It’s called a SCH. I can’t remember what it stands for. But I do like three of these a day sometimes, and often that’s what it is. Though I don’t always get to give good news.”

“Do you know what causes it?,” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said, and continued waving the wand around my belly.

He located the source of the bleeding, and pointed it out to me on the screen.

“See this dark area? That’s a blood pocket. That’s your SCH. They are usually nothing to worry about.”

I began breathing again after what felt like ages.

“If you don’t tell anyone,” he said, “I’ll let you take a picture of the baby with your phone.”

I sat up and grabbed my phone at the end of the gurney and snapped a photo of the squirmy little fetus doing a jig inside me. I couldn’t wait to show Dominique.

Then he cleaned the gel off my tummy, got me upright and took me back into the waiting area where Dominique came running out.

“The baby’s okay,” I told him. “He’s dancing around in there. She’s moving so much!” He grabbed me and hugged me and we both shed a few more tears.

“He let me take a picture,” I told him, and the tech started laughing.

“I told you not to tell anyone! I always say, ‘If you don’t tell anyone,’ and the first thing they do is tell someone.’”

They wheeled me back to the partitioned area with the bed where we were first stationed and told us to wait for the results of the blood and urine tests. Compared to the first stint on that gurney, this was a party.

I hadn’t eaten in several hours and hunger began to gnaw at me. We waited and waited and waited, when finally I asked Dominique, “Do you think we could sneak a snack in here? I’m starving.” So the good daddy that he is went in search of a vending machine and smuggled back some Cheetos, the thing I’ve craved most since becoming pregnant.

Finally, the doctor who performed the pelvic exam returned.

“You have a viable, 11 week pregnancy,” he beamed. “And what they call a subchorionic hematoma. It’s small, and you’ll want to follow up with your OB tomorrow if you can.”

He handed me a stack of paperwork.

“Is there anything I should do before seeing my doctor?,” I asked.

“I wouldn’t play any contact sports. Otherwise, you should be fine. Just take it easy.”

I began to put my clothes back on, both Dominique and I giddy knowing our baby was okay. We decided to go to a late lunch to celebrate, a new Southern place down the street.

As I was dressing, the blonde nurse with the frizzy puff ponytail asked how things went.

“It’s okay. It’s just a subchorionic hematoma. The baby’s fine,” I explained with a smile.

“See! I told you! I told you everything was going to be okay,” and she patted my arm as we made our way to the exit.

* * *

There are small risks associated with a SCH. Sometimes they can grow and cause the placenta to detach. This can sometimes result in early labor. But the odds of that happening are fairly small. Best anyone can say is around 5%.

There is, oddly, not a lot known about SCHs. I asked my doctor how they occur, and he explained it like this:

“When the embryo attaches it — well, it’s a miracle, really — but when the embryo attaches itself to the uterus it’s a very dynamic process. It really burrows very deeply into the uterine wall, and sometimes the first attempt doesn’t take. This can cause a pocket of blood to form. Usually these things bleed out or reabsorb into the body in 6-10 weeks.”

I asked if there was anything I could do to lessen my chance of this causing problems down the road. He said there was nothing, really, that could be done. But he reassured me that this happens more often that I’d think, and that almost all women go on to give birth to healthy babies.

* * *

And so I wait. I’ve had spotting on and off for about four weeks, although the last five days have been spotting-free. So long as I don’t see any red blood, then there is nothing to worry about, I’ve been told. I was also reminded to “stop googling.”

The E.R. trip and the SCH diagnosis has been a harsh reminder that there are certain things in life that are out of our control. It’s been extremely hard not to worry about the baby we want so badly in there, growing and kicking and dancing next to his or her evil blood twin. But, the fact is, there is nothing I can do. And the fact is also that, most of the time, everything works out okay in the end.

For the rest of my life I’m going to worry about this child. That’s what parents do. But I can’t let worry and what ifs consume me. I just can’t. Or I’ll make myself miserable and I’ll make the baby miserable (nothing like flooding your fetus with cortisol while you fret away), and still nothing will be accomplished.

The whole experience has been a lesson in letting go. Letting go of what I cannot control. Appreciating every day that goes by that our baby continues to grow and thrive and dance. And knowing that all the while I have a partner who loves me like fire, and that together we will get through anything thrown our way.

March 25, 2016

There was never a right time. Too poor. Too crazy. Too irresponsible. Too frantic. I couldn't beat my snooze habit, how could i raise a child?

I wasn't even sure I wanted one. I liked my life. Sure, it was hard, but wasn't that even more reason not to have a kid?

When I was dating a man back in 2008 – more than dating; he was my boyfriend and we were in love – he told me he didn't want to have children, and I decided then that I didn't either. It was a relief of sorts. Something less to think about. We could spend our days smoking bowls and drinking wine and not preparing for any life-altering offspring.

I was never one of those women who always wanted to have children. I never felt as though I would be incomplete without them, never felt as though it was my life calling. I remember a former roommate saying to me once that she wouldn’t feel fully human unless she had children; she wanted them that much.

When I told people this, they would respond in a variety of ways. “Just wait,” was one. “Oh, you’ll be missing out on so much" was another. But the one that resonated with me the most was, “Well, if you feel that way, maybe it’s best if you don’t have them. You can’t undo having a child.”

And so I waited. And occasionally I would entertain the idea. But there never was a right time. Too selfish. Too broken. Too afraid.

For me, having children was always about being part of a pairing. Some women want children and don’t want to raise them with someone else, and that is a choice I respect and admire. But what I did always know was that if I was going to have a child, ideally I would be one of that kid’s two parents. Obviously, things change and people leave, but I at least wanted to start the journey of being someone’s mommy with a daddy by my side.

The stars lined up just right in the summer of 2013, and I met the perfect person for me. Everyone who knows Dominique knows that he’s an A+ human being. And how I snagged such a great guy I’ll never know, but what I’m sure of is that I am supremely lucky.

On July 4, 2013, as he drove me alongside the Pacific Ocean on our way to dinner overlooking the sea, he said words that stirred something in me: “I definitely want to have children.”

Did I? No, really, did I? I’d only known him a few weeks, but I thought, “If I do, I want them with him.”

Years went by. Dominique and I grew closer, moved in together, made plans to marry. And soon I felt this itch, but it was more of a tickle than an annoyance: “Have a baby,” my body whispered. I ignored the voice.

At a routine gynecological visit I made mention of this tickle to my doctor. She looked at me with serious eyes and said words that changed the course of our lives: “If you want to have a baby, you should do it now. With every year you wait, the risk of something being wrong with your baby or your pregnancy or your delivery goes up markedly.” She wasn’t hinting around. She was dead serious. And her words rung in my ears for several months.

Still. Too scared. Too living paycheck-to-paycheck. Too unsure. Never the right time.

Then one day it was decided. Christmastime, 2015. “We’ll start January 1st.”

It could take six months, they told me. At your age, it could take a year, they said. And if it takes that long, you’ll have to see a fertility specialist and if you want to do IVF you’ll be 40 by the time you get pregnant, they warned.

It was time to start trying, because if I’ve ever heard anything from people with kids it’s that the time is never right.

I learned I was pregnant January 19th. I just knew. I sat at work one afternoon, and I could feel it.

I texted Dominique: “I think I’m pregnant.” He was dubious, to say the least. But that day on my way home, before even a single day of a missed period, I stopped at the dollar store near my house and bought three pregnancy tests for $1.25 each.

Once at home I rushed straight to the restroom and watched as the second pink line, faint but unmistakable, appeared on the stick. I knew, and I was right.

I went to our bedroom to see Dominique putting on his shoes. I told him to stay seated, because he may need to be sitting down. We were going to have a baby, and in an instant any doubt about the right time vanished.

December 22, 2015

A man sweeping up trash told me I was beautiful, and it made me happier than it should, as though I'd been waiting to hear it my whole life.

I climbed slick stairs that delivered me into the guts of New York, the same way that hundreds of thousands of humans are puked up onto the city's streets from the bowels of the subway system below.

I thought of all I have, all the love. I have so many things that are not owed to me. How did I get them? And why don't they make me like myself? How is devotion so much weaker than habit?

I watched a man with a sad face put a giant fake head over his own. He is an unsanctioned Olaf, a man in a suit who pretends to have magically stepped out of a Disney movie and onto the streets of Manhattan, but really he is a low-wage worker trying to make ends meet. I wonder if he hates the children he poses with for cash. I wonder if he has kids of his own and if he hates them, too. I wonder how many jobs he tried to get before buying a costume.

His furry fake head was soaked with rain, the soggiest snowman that ever lived. We met eyes before he disappeared into someone else.

August 14, 2015

The NYC deli is a peculiar beast. It separates the boys from the men, or rather, the lifers from the transplants. Rarely have I felt more intimidated than when stepping into a New York deli.

First of all, they have everything. I mean that exactly as I wrote it: everything. Want an egg salad sandwich with four kinds of cheeses, pickles, ketchup, hot sauce and salt and pepper? You can have it. Want a tire iron and some sweater lint thrown in there? You can probably have that, too.

What you can't have is a) time to decide or b) indecision. You get whatever sandwich your darling heart desires, but you'd better know what that is *before* you walk in the door.

Most NYC delis have a menu board hanging from the wall with somewhere between 20-200 predetermined options. Salami on rye. White fish on a bagel. You can order those things and be happy. But when you order them, you may get a suspicious look from the guy behind the counter who suspects you're a spy sent in for nefarious reasons. Because most New Yorkers do not order off the menu.

Why would they? There are hundreds of meats, cheeses, spreads, sauces, wraps, breads, vegetables and other accoutrements displayed under fluorescent lights and glass, a smorgasbord of options. Do you really want salami on rye? Or are you only ordering that because it's been presented as a predetermined option in a list of other predetermined options?

My first tentative trips to New York delis were crash courses in decisiveness. They were also stark lessons in understanding that I've never really and truly known what I wanted to eat. I've just eaten what was offered.

For instance, I went to a midtown deli with a friend after a very long night of tequila and cigarettes. We were both barely alive, just walking hangovers, still harboring the stench of the previous night. I ordered a #1: one egg and cheese on a bagel. She, however, ordered egg whites with jalapenos and plain cream cheese on a whole wheat wrap.

I scanned the list of 100+ menu options and saw that no where on the list. Instead, she made up her own sandwich, ordered it with assertiveness, and that's exactly what she got, no suspicious looks included.

That's because that's how you are supposed to do it! Menus are for the weak! But when you've never even considered how you like your sandwiches because you've always just eaten what was offered, this realization is a revelation.

Some odd years into this ride that is New York, I watch with amusement as others do what I once did. My favorite thing is when the guy behind the counter asks, "Whaddaya want?" and some tourist replies, "What do you have?" You can hear the collective sighs of everyone in line over the honking of cabs outside. Me, I look for a chair, because I know there is about to be a show.

In New York you can have what you want, but you'd better know what that is. And don't dawdle. Because there are approximately 2 million people in line behind you who *do* know what they want, and by God, you are in their way.

July 22, 2015

Long hair that doesn’t belong to me falls on my bare shoulder. It is a frenzy of spiders. I try to escape my skin, but I am trapped inside. If you listen closely at any time of day, just about anywhere, you can hear the screaming of girls trying to leave their bodies.

His hip is on my hip. There have been hips on my hips that didn’t belong, but that was long ago. It’s all I can think about with every push into the next station.

You aren't supposed to lean into strangers, because it feels like real support. Strangers aren’t for talking to, much less touching. Her shoulders feel like bird wings, frail and pointed, and I can't hold this woman up. I don't even know her.

You’re not supposed to know what a stranger's thigh feels like, but I can feel the extra flesh of his leg melding with the flesh of my leg. I couldn’t pick him out in a lineup, but I can tell you about the softness of his body.

You’re supposed to get to know someone first, but here we are forced to stand, skin against skin, breasts into backs, leg to leg. We will not look each other in the eyes.